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What does a real economist think of cryptocurrencies?
- sprague 5y ago"I think of them as new kinds of computers, new kinds of legal systems, and new ways of achieving reliable decentralized consensus. So I think they’re most analogous to advances in computing rather than some kind of monetary event."
- verdverm 5y agoGarbage fluff piece where the questions aren't even answered, very shallow conversation
- brightstep 5y agoThis economist contradicts himself several times. He alternately says cryptocurrencies are and are not a real currency. He also says economists aren't really qualified to analyze the space, which is interesting because he starts off by saying his role as a monetary theorist makes him uniquely qualified to do just that.
- schemescape 5y agoHe also says: “The dollar is a stablecoin.” It’s a very strange conversation.
- legitster 5y ago> I think of crypto not so much as a currency. You can’t really use it to buy a coffee at Starbucks.They’ve been failing as that kind of currency. I think of them as new kinds of computers, new kinds of legal systems, and new ways of achieving reliable decentralized consensus. So I think they’re most analogous to advances in computing rather than some kind of monetary event. This is a point I like to make about Crypto. Unless your country's money is terrible, cryptocurrency is a terrible alternative. It's better to think of the blockchain as an incredibly efficient title transfer technology. If you've ever bought a house, transferring the title is a fairly laborious and expensive process. Crypto makes that process so cheap we're using it on much dumber things. But that doesn't mean the technology itself is a dead end.